"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Pickering said that Americans’ lack of familiarity with Islam –and not Islamic terrorist attacks on Americans— fuels hostility toward Muslims.
“Data shows that those Americans who do not know Muslims, who do not know much about Islam, are the ones who harbor the greatest feelings of prejudice,” he said.
There is a “strong, continuing, and perhaps, in an unfortunate way in some areas, growing, prejudice against Muslims and Islam,” he said.

Muslims hate Americans so much they’ll kill themselves in suicide attacks against us — and then dance in the streets to celebrate what they evidently consider a “victory” for their faith — yet Thomas Pickering thinks the real problem is American “prejudice.” This kind of matters, because of who Thomas Pickering is:

Pickering’s pontifications came two and a half weeks after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named him to head a State Department “Accountability Review Board” tasked with examining the circumstances surrounding the deaths on Sept. 11, 2012, the 11th anniversary of 9/11, of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, information management officer Sean Smith, and security personnel Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods at the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Comments

http://www.redstateeclectic.typepad.com AngelaTC

Muslims in America predate the constitution. How on earth were our ancestors not beheaded while they were busy getting Sharia law into our court systems? The answer is Capitalism. As long as we keep our troops in the Middle East and our CIA involved in their governments, they’re going to hate us. Stop whacking the hornets nest, bring everybody home, and let them go back to hating and killing each other.

I’m sympathetic to that point, but only so far — they’ll keep inventing provocations and slights and coming after us no matter what we do. We’ve learned that lesson at the cost of far too much innocent blood, and we’d do well not to forget it.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_MJGP4QXZ5PRW2MFA5E25CV2WNU rosalie

How are we going to be safe if they want to spread their make believe religion all over the world? Isn’t this their ultimate goal?

robertstacymccain

In a word, Angela, modernity. We cannot wish it out of existence. In 1787, there were no jetliners departing daily for the U.S. Today there are more Muslims in some neighborhoods of Dearborn, Michigan, there were in the entirety of the United States in 1787.

matthew w

Pickering’s logic is completely bass ackwards

Grammie

I hate to disabuse Pickering but a few years back I spent a few weeks using most of my time on the computer to read about Islam and Islamic countries. I devoted a substantial amount of time to Sharia law and how it is implemented in Islamic countries.

I went from opposing Islamic terrorism to well nigh being a, justified IMO, full blown Islamophobe based on what I learned.

There are billions of Muslims and a major tenet of their faith is their imperative to conquer the world in the name of Mohammad by any means necessary. The ultimate goal is to convert the world to Islam by conquest. Once in control anyone who refuses to convert is to simply be executed.

A very big difference between modern Western Judeo-Christian societies and Islamic Theocracies is, simply put, the difference between Medievial societies and modern ones. Islamic countries subscribe to the medieval idea that religion, custom and law are all of one cloth and stand together.

AngelaTC, as a woman you should be doubly, triply concerned with the spread of Islam and Sharia law. Under Sharia a woman has virtually NO rights. In fact, my dog has more rights under law here than women do in any Islamic ruled country.

Can you even begin to imagine being a young woman barely in your teens and married off to a sexual sadist, or a physical brute with no support or help from your family, community, religious leader and your government. There are millions of women living with just that threat in Islamic countries today. Unfortunately it is just those countries who train, finance and deploy the Ilamic terrorists in their effort to spread Islam.

Finrod Felagund

As long as we keep our troops in the Middle East and our CIA involved in their governments are free and don’t have an Islamic government, they’re going to hate us.There, I fixed that for you.

http://profiles.google.com/rob5136 Rob Crawford

Constantine XI Palaiologos would like to have a word with you about what exactly he was doing that “whacked the hornet’s nest”.

http://wizbangblog.com/ Adjoran

So let the “review” be forever known as Pickering’s Whitewash. Given his background, it seems rather clear he will spend a good part of the time wailing about the freaking video – which no one in the region would ever have seen if Morsi’s government hadn’t broadcast it on Egyptian state TV – and less on the “incident” at Benghazi.

There is just no point in trying to appease barbarians. You cannot civilize them. You can only make it so painful when they cross the lines that they fear you and stay the heck away.

Nobody fears a bowing, scraping, ‘pologizing peacock.

JeffS

Stop spouting nonsense. Specifically:

+ Muslims have killed more Muslims in the name of Allah than Americans have killed Muslims in the name of freedom.

+ Muslims have invaded and occupied more countries since Mohammed started the religion, than the United States has invaded, occupied, and then liberated since 1776.
+ People will find their own reasons to hate people. This is a human thing. In the case of Islam, it’s been defined for them: You are either Muslim or you are not. If you don’t believe that, try to board a direct flight to Mecca wearing a mini-skirt.

If you’re going to be an apologist for Islamic terrorists, try to do so honestly. Osama’s fatwa against the West was twisted enough, but at least was up front about his hatred.

Adobe_Walls

That any person thinks the threat Islam poses is caused by prejudice, makes them delusional. That any person in any position of authority (even managing a McDonald’s) makes them a “threat to the security and safety of The United States of America”. Hopefully he will be dismissed on Jan. 20, 2013 and banished from any government service.

daisy

I live in a neighborhood that has become mostly Muslim. The women are alright but the men are horrible and it’s frigtening seeing the change in the boys when they start going to Islamic school. Cute little five year olds stop smiling and glare at me becasue I’m not covered like their mother’s. Mr. Pickering can go sit on a pin.